A TASTE OF ARTISTIC IMAGINATION

Being awarded the title of Asia’s Best Pastry Chef and the first Thai to win the award at Asia’s 50 Best this year, Dej Kewkacha began his sweet journey at a young age. 

- NIANNE-LYNN HENDRICKS

“I first ventured into pastry 19 years ago with Sfree, the sugar-free brand, which opened at Future Park Rangsit. At that time, I was just assigned to be part of the business as I was still studying for my masters at Oxford. My then roommate was a sous pastry chef at Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons by chef Raymond Blanc. This is when I began taking an interest in pastry, especially since my roommate used to make pastries for us,” says Dej.

“Around the same time, there was a theme park in Japan known for its quirky and experimental ice cream flavours and they had something called ‘ice cream champions’. All the champions were invited to open shops at the park. There was a pastry chef who only did sugar-free granita and yoghurt ice cream.

“For Sfree, we managed to get this chef as a consultant and I returned to Thailand to be his assistant. After Sfree, we opened Parfait Rio, which was Japanese parfait, and after that we opened Kyo Roll En. Though that was a coincidence.” 

Dej’s family also runs Safari World, where the brands would serve seasonal menus and “that was where the roll cake was born”, he says. “I was the first to do a cow print roll cake in Thailand at Safari World. The cake went viral and we came up with the idea of opening a roll cake shop.”

Having travelled to Japan since he was a child and being fluent in Japanese, Dej decided to focus on Japanese roll cakes for Kyo Roll En.

“While we were creating the brand, Japan was awash with the bamboo charcoal craze. That’s where I got the idea to use it in an ice cream. No one was doing this in Thailand at the time. Kyo Roll En has two key products, the roll cake and the black and green soft serve. Kyo stands for Kyoto because bamboo charcoal originates from there, Roll for the roll cake and En for the Japanese zen garden,” explains Dej.